Brown: As college campus ‘protests’ metastasize, Hawk Hill celebrates life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
On Friday, April 26, in the green space between the Saint Joseph Chapel and Campion, the SJU student activities center, throngs of students gathered to hear music, enjoy “All of a Sudden Desserts,” hot dogs and treats, and fun rides and amusements.
This was Spring Fling 2024, a celebration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
In stark contrast, according to news media, the complete opposite was happening on several college campuses nationwide.
In New York, CNN’s Jordan Valinsky reported, “College campuses across the United States have erupted with pro-Palestinian protests, and school administrators are trying – and largely failing – to defuse the situation.
“Tensions on US college campuses have risen since the Hamas’ October 7 attack, when militants killed about 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages.
“Reports of anti-Semitic attacks have risen across America and particularly on campus since October 7.
“Islamophobia has run rampant, too. The recent surge in protests has inflamed those tensions, forcing leadership to decide when free speech on campus crosses a line and becomes threatening.
“Several schools have called the police regarding the protesters, leading to the arrests of hundreds across multiple campuses.
“The situation escalated last week at Columbia University when the university’s president, Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, testified before a House Committee about the school’s response to charges of campus anti-Semitism.
“A pro-Palestinian protest kicked off on campus at the same time.
“Following her testimony, Shafik requested in a letter released by the university that the New York City Police Department remove people who were encamped on the South Lawn of the campus who were ‘in violation of the University’s rules and policies’ and trespassing.
“More than one hundred people were arrested, according to Law Enforcement.
“The encampments were organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a student-led coalition of more than one hundred organizations.”
Apparently, CUAD includes “Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace to protest what they describe as the university’s ‘continued financial investment in corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine,’ according to its news release.”
“For Jewish students, protests stir fear, anger, hope, and questions,” based on an article by Laura Meckler and Michelle Boorstein for The Washington Post, updated on April 28.
“Every value that I hold in my heart is in tension with another principle which I hold deeply right now,” said Dahlia Soussan, a junior at Barnard College which is affiliated with Columbia.
“In the days that followed the protests, her anger and sadness would grow. So would her frustration, as she saw friends unwilling to take a stand against what she saw as anti-Semitism on campus.
“When she went home to Toronto for the Jewish holiday of Passover, part of her did not want to come back to New York. But she did.”
“For Jewish college students, this is a moment of intense and sometimes conflicting emotions as many college campuses erupt in loud protests against Israel’s conduct in the war and, in some cases, its existence — all while the deadly war in Gaza presses on and Israeli — and American— hostages remain in captivity.
“It adds up to profound questions over what it means to be a young Jew in America in 2024.
“For some, the overriding feeling is one of fear and pain.
“Others have joined with the protesters, seeing the opposition to the war in Gaza as an opportunity to live out Jewish values, taught while growing up, about justice and the value of human life.
“And many others are conflicted, seeing nuance when it feels like so many around them see black and white.”
As Rabbi Jill Jacobs, a human rights advocate who helps train rabbinical students and others, opined, “Jewish students are left pinballing between emotions – worry over Israel’s safety and the fate of the hostages, fear of rising anti-Semitism at home, empathy for Palestinians.
“They are horrified by what is happening in Gaza and also by what happened on Oct. 7 and by anti-Semitism,” Rabbi Jacobs said. The students do not see enough models for how to hold it all.”
According to The Washington Post, “Columbia President Shafik told members of the House Committee on Education ‘that balancing the free speech rights of those who want to protest with the rights of Jewish students to be free of harassment and discrimination at Columbia has been the central challenge on campus.’
“Her hearing followed one in December in which three other university presidents – from Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT – were scrutinized over their testimony before Congress, during which they declined to say calls for the genocide of Jews would violate campus policies.
“The leaders of Harvard and Penn later resigned,” as reported by The Washington Post in an article titled, “How antiwar student protests are spreading across U.S. universities,” by Jonathan Edwards, Reshma Kirpalani, Hannah Natanson, and Júlia Ledur , updated April 24.
A comment in The Washington Post by a reader who goes by “Aransasi” states, “I think we’re seeing an abject failure by the mainstream American press, in not telling the public that it appears the violent campus takeovers we are seeing have a foreign terrorist organization as a shot-caller and event planner.
“It looks like the FBI is warning campus police and their adjacent local police about the ‘campus take-over plans.”
“The attempted takeover at UT Austin mimics what is happening elsewhere in the USA.
“If you’ve got college-age children or grandchildren, or even teenagers who are driving or roaming around urban areas on their own, to keep those kids safe, you’ve got to warn them to stay away from these protests and encampments.
“Tell them to not even walk by them. You as an adult should stay away too. The cops are not messing around, because of the connection between the protest organizers and shot-callers and a terrorist organization.”
In other words, be safe and follow the lead of SJU students, that is, go to class, debate vigorously, respect the points of view of others, work well, and defend democracy and free speech peacefully.
And, celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the face of the hatred and threatened violence of ill-intentioned and mean-spirited disruptors.
Mary Brown, a weekly columnist for Main Line Media News, teaches Latin at Saint Joseph’s University.
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